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For years, planners have been using car traffic delay—a measure known as “level of service” or LOS—as a proxy for all the environmental impacts of travel. What it meant was that car delay was counted as a negative impact, but delay to people in buses or trains, on bikes, and on foot was not accounted for—except where their presence might cause delay to cars.

One of the many unintended and negative consequences was that CEQA became a tool to require developers to avoid or mitigate vehicle delays their projects might cause. That ended up encouraging new sprawl development in areas where increased traffic could be easily absorbed, while discouraging infill in places where people might be able to live closer to jobs and where transit, biking, and walking are more viable transportation choices.

The focus on car delay also led to widening roads, adding lanes, and creating vast intersections – all intended to keep cars moving. At the same time, using LOS discourages traffic calming designs that make streets safer for everyone but slow down cars. LOS’s larger unintended consequences end up including longer commutes, more car travel, more congestion, increased emissions, less housing where most needed, higher housing and transportation costs, and fewer travel and housing choices for everyone.

The four-year-long process of coming to an agreement on these changes has been frustratingly slow for many, but some say it was also necessary. Relying on LOS has had severe negative environmental outcomes, and it is crucial not to create new unanticipated negative consequences in fixing the problem.

Now that the guidelines—including a separate Technical Advisory on the SB 743 changes—have been released, the Natural Resources Agency will conduct a formal “rulemaking” process, with more public feedback and discussion, which might bring further changes to the proposed guidelines. The rulemaking is supposed to take about six months. But the overall process has gone on for so long—the joke is that the guidelines were going to be released “in about two weeks” for at least the last year—that the proposed timeline for final implementation is two years from now, in January 2020, according to the Caltrans website.

The rules will go into effect as soon as they are adopted, but cities will have two years after that to figure out the switch to the VMT measure. Meanwhile, cities around the state have already been changing their practices to comply with the new rules. Pasadena, San Francisco, and Oakland have already replaced LOS with VMT in environmental reviews, and San Jose, Los Angeles, and Sacramento are close to formally adopting a VMT measure in CEQA.

And what do the new guidelines say? Among other things:

Land development projects subject to CEQA will no longer measure traffic delay (LOS) as an environmental impact, but instead must account for and mitigate increases in travel (VMT). This would apply to all development everywhere in the state, including sprawling suburban developments, which have been getting off easy under an LOS measure because roads and intersections in outlying areas tend to be able to absorb more travel without increasing delay.

It’s hard to overstate how huge a difference this could make for planning in California. This change will support infill housing, for example. Housing projects could still be built in suburban areas, but they will have to account for the increased car travel they bring. Not only will this provide valuable information for regional planning organizations trying to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, but developments will have to figure out ways to mitigate the effects of that increase. Suggested mitigations include improving transit, creating better bike access, locating affordable housing near transit, traffic calming, and limiting parking, instead of building wider, faster roads as encouraged by an LOS measure.

On the other hand, not all transportation projects will be subject to the new rules. Rail, transit, bicycle, and pedestrian projects will no longer use LOS as a measure of impact, and because they generally reduce VMT, they will be presumed to have “less than significant transportation impacts.”

But measuring impacts of freeway projects and roadway widening projects will be left up to the discretion of the agency in charge—meaning they can use LOS as they have for years—if they are already included in a Regional Transportation Plan and Sustainable Communities Strategies (SCS). This will help avoid potential problems with funding delays, since many projects have been in the pipeline for years and are set to receive money from the new gas tax.

Although this isn’t all advocates had hoped for, it’s not necessarily terrible. Regional planning processes like the RTPs and the SCSs are probably a better place for deciding these issues than in a project-specific Environmental Impact Report (EIR), as long as there is true, robust public input. Sustainability and equity advocates need to get out in front of these processes, and communities need to speak up. The important role of public advocacy is underscored by one recent court case won by advocates. Although the Supreme Court agreed that the San Diego Association of Governments had followed the law in its regional plan, a California appeals court just ruled that the RTP was nevertheless “deficient” because it failed to consider alternatives that could reduce VMT. That wouldn’t have happened without the tenacity of the advocacy groups calling for better planning.

Jeffrey Tumlin, a Principal Planner at Nelson\Nygaard who has many years of experience planning in California, points out that the guidelines reduce uncertainty, ambiguity, and contradictions that have plagued CEQA processes for years. “This is hugely important,” he said. “It is a huge, positive step forward. It maintains a lot of flexibility for lead agencies, and just requires that we do our homework, particularly with cities and regions that have transit.”

“And it puts a lot of weight on existing environmentally cleared specific plans, RTPs, and SCSs, which is fine, given the huge amount of funding uncertainty that would result from invalidating individual projects already planned and funded in regional plans.”

“It does, however, mean that we’ll have twenty years of backlogged bad projects that will need to be fought over outside CEQA, and in SCS updates.”

The changes resulting from S.B. 743 are positive ones that will create a profound shift in planning. But deeper flaws in CEQA remain.

There are no clear guidelines, for example, on how to justify highway expansion, and that creates great uncertainty. California can’t just stop developing altogether, but there needs to be a guide for how to do it right.

“CEQA never defines what is good,” says Tumlin. “It seeks only to make a project less bad. Unfortunately that is the foundation of California environmental practice: there is no reward for positive impacts.”

“We only look at negative impacts, not at better outcomes.”

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This is all about the state legislature wanting to accommodate massive population growth through infill within built-out urban areas where infrastructure has been sized to match the design population. Additional infill will overload the infrastructure. People that invested in these communities want to live like this! Not in vertical high density communities. Why isn’t anyone talking about this?

The state legislature passed numerous bills (example: SB 2299) which exempt activities from CEQA and OPRs proposed final CEQA Guidelines Update further manipulate the Guidelines to eliminate analysis of Traffic delay from the CEQA Guidelines. In so doing the Guuidelines will allow projects with adverse traffic impacts (and traffic’s secondary impacts) to be exempted and/or to qualify as infill projects and be streamlined. CEQA exemptions are supposed to be for activities that will have no impact on the environment! Just because a project reduces VMT doesn’t mean it will not result in significant adverse Traffic impacts. Oh, lets fix this problem that could prohibit infill by changing the Guidelines and exempting Traffic and blame it on SB 743! Read SB 743, it does not mandate this change. This is OPRs proposal to address SB 743. What better way to force mass transit than to have California’s road system fail in urban areas!

How about the state legislature taking away the decision making authority from local governments and public input. The CEQA process won’t disclose Traffic impacts, There will be no mitigation and no discussion of alternatives for traffic impacts. The environmental baseline will not reflect the existing condition because Traffic will be exempted.

Here is one to consider. Your a city updating your general plan. Do you have to consider the thousands of potential ADUs that could be built pursuant to AB 2299 within the General Plan horizon year? I think so. Its a regulatory change in circumstances. What if the projected ADUs take up all the available development capacity in the city? Your an applicant of a large R-1 subdivision and you decide to put ADUs on each lot doubling the density. ADus are exempt from CEQA. How is a city/county going to address this regulatory change in circumstances in a legally defensible manner without speculation? Sounds like a temporary partial development moratorium. That would be great for the economy! Its likely what every is done short of a worst case analysis will be grounds for litigation to me.

Read the proposed Guidelines Update and compare them to the rules. If LOS analysis is publicly funded it is part of CEQA, its not a planning document which is exempt.. If LOS is part of a general plan, its part of CEQA. But the Guidelines update say Traffic (LOS) is not a part of CEQA. So how does the CEQA document for the general plan address this conflict? Sounds like grounds for litigation to me.

The state legislature is tasked by CEQA (the Act) to protect the environment, not pass bills and change the rules to avoid environmental analysis to accomplish their goals! The legislature is reducing what constitutes the whole of the “environment” by exempting activities that will result in significant adverse impacts on the environment..

What the state legislature is attempting is to avoid litigation and local governments and the public who disagree with their policies.

Just think if the legislature accomplishes their goals of massive population growth through their policy of urban infill. What kind of urban problems are we going to face when automation replaces jobs! Its happening now and is projected to rapidly increase in the near-term. Low income jobs will be hard hit. Any increases in minimum wage is in competition with automation. The cost of automation is dropping.

Whew! OPR its about time. Congratulations on your planning and foresight.

That is, cities like San Francisco will be able to take away traffic lanes on busy city streets to make bike lanes that will screw up traffic for everyone but cyclists, a small minority even here in Progressive Land. Muni buses full of passengers getting delayed on congested streets will no longer be an environmental impact? This is nuts.

Ray

The bad choices have nothing to do with LOS or VMT, and everything to do with not pricing the road based on it’s value. If market-based economics were used on roads, then vehicle numbers would be limited to design capacity and the per-mile charge and real estate costs would determine if a road widening is economically feasible. At some point, a transportation mode shift will become more economically feasible than a road widening. But, until we start correctly pricing transportation resources like we do with other resources, this will never happen. It all starts with ending the Soviet-era breadline treatment of the road network.

H. E. Christian Peeples

Unfortunately, many jurisdictions and one Court of Appeal decision take the position that now that motor fuels are covered by Cap & Trade, increases in VMT are “mitigated” and thus do not need to be discussed under CEQA. Some of us are trying to figure out what to do about that.

Sounds like a good way to limit traffic coming into cities. If freeways are choked and it takes trucks twice as long to get to and from the city it will encourage truck-dependent businesses to move out of the central city. It will also further raise freight costs near downtown

“Regional planning processes like the RTPs and the SCSs are probably a better place for deciding these issues than in a project-specific Environmental Impact Report (EIR), as long as there is true, robust public input”.

I would expect that if 70-80% of local residents drive that the majority of public comment will continue to favor driving.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Nice write-up. One small correction: “The rules will go into effect as soon as they are adopted, but cities
will have two years after that to figure out the switch to the VMT
measure.” The updated proposal removed all references to a two-year opt in period. The proposal now states that agencies may opt in early, but the new CEQA procedures will be mandatory statewide starting January 1, 2020 (see Section c, “Applicability” in the proposed new CEQA text). In other words, it identifies the exact date rather than pegging it to the approval date.

Dale Danley

Congratulations, especially to all those who have had the long-term commitment to see this through.

After several years of work, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) is almost ready to release draft guidelines on replacing vehicle Level of Service measures under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The shift was called for by Senate Bill 743, which passed late in the 2013 legislative session. OPR will propose measuring […]

Buried in a five-hour long meeting of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee yesterday, a short discussion ended in a vote to move legislation that will delay the state’s shift away from car-centric planning. A.B. 779. The bill aims to slow the removal of Level of Service (LOS) from California environmental regulations by delaying implementation of guidelines […]

New rules called for by S.B. 743 will require development projects to estimate the vehicle miles of travel they will produce, instead of the amount of traffic delay they might cause. But as currently proposed, the rules will not apply to transportation projects.

SCAG sent a last-minute letter attempting to delay progressive updates to California’s outdated environmental standards. In the letter [PDF], Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG)—the regional transportation planning organization for much of southern California—requested exemptions for highway expansion projects and freight corridors from proposed state rules that could show their true environmental impact in a […]